Automation of high-throughput arrayed mammalian cell line cultivation

Area of Science:

• Biotechnology
• Cell Biology
• Laboratory Automation

Background:

• Traditional cell culture automation is low-throughput, limiting its use for rapidly proliferating cells or generating stable clonal lines.
• Existing automation struggles with complex tasks like passaging and clonal selection, hindering research efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To implement automated, high-throughput mammalian cell culture workflows for complex tasks.
• To enhance cell line development and characterization through automation.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a Biomek i7 Hybrid automated workstation with peripheral instruments and SAMI EX software.
• Integrated CloneSelect imager for rapid confluency and monoclonality assessment.
• Developed automated pipelines for cell density monitoring, passaging, cherry-picking, reformatting, normalization, and cryopreservation.

Main Results:

• Achieved consistent workflow performance across multiple cell lines and replicates.
• Demonstrated efficient cell passaging and density normalization (32 min/plate).
• Successfully established an average of 35 clonal lines per 384-well plate, suitable for downstream analysis.

Conclusions:

• The automated system significantly enhances throughput and consistency in mammalian cell culture.
• This automation enables efficient clonal line establishment and supports downstream genomic analysis.
• The developed workflows address unmet needs in high-throughput cell line development.